Trip Report: Lane Peak, The Zipper

By Lindsey Frallic

Have you been ignoring your crampons and ice axes? Want to use them on a straight forward climb with a short approach? The Zipper route on Lane Peak may be just what you need. Depending on the conditions, it could also offer you a nice mixed rock and ice route.

The week prior to Sunday, February 21, 2010 was relatively dry. Temperatures had been warm during the day and cold at night. We hoped it was just the right environment to allow the snow fall from previous weeks to condense a bit on this north facing route. Avalanche danger was low and the forecast was for sunny skies. We were prepared to set ice, snow, and rock anchors.


From the Narada Falls parking lot, we elected to take the heart-pumping direct approach up the steep slope to an obvious road. The road provided an excellent view of Lane Peak and after about half a mile we were at our turn off point, an large, obvious bend. We had the luxury of following a path well-worn from snow shoes, but keep in mind that you do lose site of the objective the minute you drop toward the creek bed. It could be very easy to waste time on the way in and out.

The snow shoe trail led us to a good snow bridge over Tatoosh Creek, which would have been difficult to cross otherwise. Denman Peak is the main character in this photo, taken just after the crossing.

After we crossed the basin it was basic step kicking until probably 500 feet before we turned climbers’ left to head up into the couloirs. The photo to the left shows about where we stopped to put on our crampons and harnesses, as well as the return route.

The snow was steep and hard enough to want two tools at various points in the climb, but most of the time it was soft enough to get by with just one.

Once you’re in the gulley, it’s hard to get lost. Its narrow chute would make for great natural handrails even in poor visibility.

The Zipper!

At the notch and into the sunshine.

Final summit push.

We enjoyed the views at the notch for a few minutes while we took off our crampons. It was steep, we guessed 35-40 degrees, but with softer snow and a long, clean run-out, we stayed un-roped.

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The ridge out to the summit turned out to be a bit dicer than expected. It was wind-blown and difficult to get much purchase in our steps – especially on the transition from the slope to the ridge.

After a quick summit photo, we were soaking in the views at the notch again in no time. Denman is so close. If you are feeling ambitious, consider combining them both on your next outing.

Descending the saddle between Lane and Denman Peaks is the easiest way back to Narada Falls. The snow conditions were variable throughout the climb, but it wasn’t until the saddle that we encountered a thick crusty top layer that gave way to a knee deep plunge.

Topo image credit: http://littlerain.com/mango/lane-zip/lane.htm

We quickly reached the tree line and scattered within yelling distance to find an easier way down. The best spot also happened to have evidence of an old, small snow slide. Just a few careful steps down climbing and we were on the last leg of the trip.

Soon we were climbing back up to the snow-covered road. At a relaxed pace, placing no pro, the trip was a little over six hours from car to car.

Counter clockwise from the top: Robert Fisher, Rose Hesse, Lindsey Frallic, Eric Fjellanger

The construction of a tyrolean traverse

by Bill Booth

Ever wonder what it's like to set up one of those high ropes set across a ravine? How about getting across it? It's just another basic skill we learn about in the ICC.

The primary anchor was insane. We generate a LOT of force on both sides of the tyrolean due to the fact that it approaches a 180 degree angle. Therefore, we BEEF up that primary anchor with way, way too many pieces. That's partially for redundancy, and partially because we are anchor building geeks.

The high strength tie off is about 4 wraps around a rock on the other side.

The rope runs from the tie-off through the primary anchor, then up into a 3-to-1 raising/lowering system.

I just set my GoPro HD helmet cam over to the side and took a picture every 5 seconds until it ran out of juice.

Filmed at Horsethief Butte State Park in Southern Washington.

yay!
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How to fake a winter ascent of Rainier during the winter of 2009

By: Oscar Montoya

Here is the question. How can I say I have done a winter ascent of Ranier and not have suffered so much?

Answer, wait until there is an inversion over Western Washington that lasts for several days and makes Camp Muir feel like it is summer instead of winter.

Bill Booth and I climbed Rainier on Jan 17/18 2009 via the Ingraham Glacier and downclimbed via the Gibraltar Ledges (I know it is the opposite of what is normally done, but I was “guiding”, Bill would have done something more coherent, enough said). The plan was to do a 2 day summit ascent by sleeping at Camp Muir and then taking Sunday to climb to the summit and return to the car. Part of the plan was to skin up to Camp Muir and snowboard down to the parking lot once we were finished with the climb.

Getting ready at the parking lot.

Day 1:
Bill Booth arrives at my house. I meet him and we fester and joke about what hopefully will be a good climb. We drive off but 2 minutes later I remembered that I had left my snowboarding boots in my garage. We return to my house and pack my boots. Finally we are heading to Rainier. Once we arrive to get our permit I realized I had not packed my climbing pants. All I had were jeans!!! Bill points out that there is no way he was going to be seen with anyone climbing with jeans up Rainier. So we turn around and go to the local climbing shop and I buy brand new pants. By 11AM we are ready to start skinning up the Muir Snowfield. I have gone up the Muir snowfield several times in the past and I know how long it takes to get up there. Since this was Bill’s first time up the mountain, Bill comments how no matter what you do, Muir is still 3 miles away no matter how close we get.

Taking a break at Muir Snowfield.

We arrived to Muir around 4pm and prepared our food and sleeping bags. There were several teams in the hut and it was so plush!!! We loved it. It was almost 60F inside the hut. Now that is comfort. We decided we were going to start the ascent around 2am. However we did not trust our watch and when we thought it was 2am it was actually 12am. So we ended up starting at 1am.

Inside the hut

Oscar, Bill, altitude sickness effects.

Sunset from Camp Muir

Day 2:
The route that we took was the Ingraham Direct moving towards the northern side of the mountain. We followed a team up the headwall and then we took the lead. After jumping some crevasses, navigating around them and 8 hours of step kicking, we arrived at the crater rim. I was cold and had some AMS, Bill also had some AMS. We decided to come down the mountain. As we were coming down we decided that in order to save time we would go down to Muir via the Gibraltar Ledges route since it is the shortest route. However this also meant we would have to deal with down-climbing some 3rd class climbing and some 65 degree snow. This is when things started to slow down. Since we didn’t really know the route that well, we were following the step of teams that had come up the route. Down-climbing the snow was not too difficult, but we got off route in the rock section and ended up on top of a small cliff. Additionally the sun was hitting the ledges and small rocks were falling. Since we were at the top of a cliff, we had to rap down from a boulder (yeah, I know rock is super solid on Rainier, I was leading, enough said….). This took time since we had to find a good boulder that would not crumble since most of the rock on Rainier is a bunch of choss.

The crater rim

Our descent route took us to the right side of the picture. This is looking towards Eastern Washington near the crater.

After we rapped down from the cliff onto the snow we still had to continue traversing the ledges until we finally arrived to Camp Muir. Our descent took 5.5 hours mostly from the steep down-climbing, and getting off route in the rocky section. Additionally our crampons were balling and that also slowed us down.

Traversing the ledges. The wall to the left was crumbly.

Once we arrived at Muir, we packed our gear and snowboarded down to the car. At first we thought that snowboarding was going to be easy, but that was some of the worse skiing either of us had done (Bill’s commented that he couldn’t imagine anyone enjoying that kind of snowboarding). The snow was too icy, and blocky, and we were carrying 30 pound backpacks. Over all it was an awesome trip and it was enjoyable to see big avalanches occur near us (but safely away from us) and we got an awesome workout.

We saw this fox right next to our car.